No matter what you thought about Attack of the Clones, George Lucas and
his CG crew put some of their best work into the last forty-five minutes
of the movie. The epic ground battle between Republican and Separatist
troops was nothing short of breathtaking. While other Star Wars titles
based on Attack of the Clones dance around this final segment, Star
Wars: The Clone Wars is the only one that deals with the ground battle
head on. Developed by Pandemic Studios, it's a vehicular combat game
that is as successful a Star Wars game as it is an action game.

Clone Wars deviates very little from other LucasArts titles. The main
chunk of the game is set upon six different backdrops with a campaign
that runs its course in over a dozen missions. What separates Clone
Wars from its brethren is the setting. This game is not ashamed about
putting up a huge number of ground units on both sides of the
battlefield; allied and enemy. Furthermore, the action is more intense
in this game. The pacing has become more frenetic as you mow through
the Separatist legions.

This isn't a war game or a tank simulation though. This is still an
arcade action game at heart so you can expect to kill dozens of enemies
before being slain yourself. Moreover, the controls differ very little
from one vehicle to another. The speedbike and Republic tank are fairly
similar except the bike is able to get around quicker. There's nothing
wrong with this at all because it's fun, appealing and ultimately, very
well executed.

In terms of level design, the missions themselves are noticeably more
involving than the ones in earlier games. Wrapped around a heavy story,
practically no mission carries out as planned and there are numerous
twists and additional objectives introduced in each outing. A bevy of
bonus objectives are included too. As customary with other recent Star
Wars titles, successful completion of these bonus objectives will help
you unlock special features in the game.

The only hiccups in the campaign are the on foot sequences. Because of
how the story is structured, you'll have to take on the role of Anakin,
Mace Windu and Obi-wan. Some task you to take Mace Windu on foot to
hack down droids during a retreat. Excuse my Anakin Jedi arrogance but
that's just an absurd misallocation of Jedi manpower. There are also
some lightsaber battles involved, none of which approaches the
complexity of the lackluster Obi-Wan or the recently released Jedi
Outcast. Let's just say the lightsabers are simply sideshows to the
main event because this is where the game falters most. It becomes
painfully clear, with play, that the game is simply incapable of
handling the out of vehicle sequences. Thankfully, there aren't too
many of these sequences during the course of the campaign and the
multiplayer is filled with vehicle rather than infantry action.

The multiplayer is something that deserves special recognition. I bet
no one expected Pandemic to put so much time into the multiplayer
portion of the game. Besides the usual deathmatch and CTF settings,
there's a Conquest mode that is a simplified version of what we find in
games like Battlefield 1942. It's based on capture and hold, so you and
your friends will have to fight over points (co-operatively too). These
points then give you the currency for additional AI units and you can
direct these friendly units to aid you (Attack, Break, Defend, Regroup
orders). This is the piece de resistance of the entire game and it was
a mode that I enjoyed playing immensely. It's high time for developers
to recognize deathmatch isn't the only or most entertaining multiplayer
mode out there.

Clone Wars is supported by a decent graphics engine. There may not be
hundreds of vehicles on the screen at once but there's a fair bit of
action going on and to be honest, I was looking for framerate hiccups.
To my surprise, there weren't many noticeable ones at all. The little
infantry troops running around really add to the game's immersion, even
if they're nothing more than cannon fodder.

It's amazing to see titles from LucasArts maturing to such a state. You
may think the formula is getting stale but critics never complained
about the sound effects and music (save for one or two bad apples) for
Star Wars games before. Now, they can't really complain about the
visuals either because every game is featuring graphics that are soundly
appealing across the board. Clone Wars is no exception. The audio
experience you'll get with Dolby Pro Logic II is one of the better ones
here.

In spite of the technical prowess, solid gameplay and exciting
multiplayer, Clone Wars finds itself in the unenviable position of being
compared to Rogue Leader - a game many consider to be the best Star Wars
title to date. This is not a perfect game. The box art will try to
convince you'll fight amongst thousands and thousands of troops. It's
more like dozens and dozens of soldiers. However, that isn't to say
Pandemic didn't achieve what they set out to achieve.

There is a scene in Attack of the Clones that particularly stirred me.
It's when one of the enemy dropships is shot down bringing on a cloud of
smoke. George Lucas then takes us down to the very front lines, as the
dust begins obscuring everything; friend and foe alike. But the
soldiers simply continue firing. That scene reflected a zeitgeist that
wasn't found in Phantom Menace and Pandemic basically crafts an entire
game inspired from that one battle. The result is a highly satisfying
title. Despite being trapped in the same old LucasArts formula, the
change of pace fighting in vehicles turns what could have been a ho-hum
game into a thrilling homage to the film's end sequence.